Guardian Unlimited Books | News | Where to stick grocer's apostrophe:


"One of the epidemic errors of the past 30 years - unnecessary, misplaced or omitted apostrophes in the words 'its'and 'it's' - has dwindled to only about 8% of people, possibly because the mistake has drawn so much ridicule. It was dubbed 'the grocer's apostrophe' because of its unnecessary use in plural words on shop signs or placards (Price's Slashed). "

"Towse" wrote in this message news:misc.writing.moderated
>
> Tbe Oxford University Press has checked through its 300m-word database
> and released a list of the most misused/confused words.
>
> 1) diffuse/defuse
> 2) rein/reign
> 3) toe/tow
> 4) pedal/peddle
> 5) draw/drawer
> 6) compliment/complement
> 7) their/there/they're.
>
> FWIW, seems the publicity about the grocer's apostrophe has been
> widespread enough that _that error is only made about 8% of the time
> while confusion of "diffuse" for "defuse" is made 50% of the time.
>
> --
> Sal
>
> Ye olde swarm of links: thousands of links for writers, researchers and
> the terminally curious <http://www.internet-resources.com/writers>
>